Busy month

After a solid week of 30+ degree temperatures today it's a much more tolerable 25 degrees or so and raining. The rain is actually nice because it has also helped things feel cooler and although I typically enjoy the hot weather this is really nice right now. So, I have to write something because just yesterday (or perhaps the day before?) I quickly posted that due to the weather it was too hot to post!

While most of my blog posts have been written from the 'we did this' vantage point (i.e. the past) now I'll write about what 'we will do'. July will be busy. We have a ton of training to do with just about 1.5 months to go till the Ironman but we're starting the month off with a complete day off. We slept in and then watched the Tour de France all day long. Tomorrow things will get busy though and likely won't calm down for a while. Sandi has her 'formation civique' which is a day-long course where she'll learn about the organization of functioning of the French state and the fundamental principles of the French republic including (of course) liberty and equality (they don't mention fraternity in the letter...). This is part of her resident requirements which for some reason I don't have to do. After work (and Sandi's formation) we'll then run 30km! The next morning I'll go on a bike ride before taking my bike to Vélo Dayak (a bike store in Grenoble) to get a 'check-up' while I'm in Belgium. After that I'll take the shuttle to the Lyon airport and then spend a few days in Brussels for the European Project "FusePool"'s kickoff. This is a project that I'll start working on and this meeting is to discuss how the project will proceed and to get to know the other people that will participate from other companies. To read more about the project see http://www.fusepool.eu/

On the Thursday night before I return, our friend Thony will arrive from Sweden. He's visiting for a week where we'll have a "training camp" in preparation for our Ironman in August. We'll also drink a lot of coffee and watch a lot of Tour de France. We would like to go see some of it live but it will likely be too far away when he's here to be able to. The Monday after he arrives, Sandi will also start her job as a teacher at an English camp. After Thony leaves at the end of the week, we'll have a weekend (which will include hours and hours of biking and running -- and maybe some swimming) and then on the Tuesday our friends Russell and Sarah will arrive from Canada. While they're here we will spend the weekend in Nice and also visit Monaco.

On a recent bike trip in the Vercors mountain we stopped for lunch in La Chappelle en Vercors. Here we are enjoying some fine duck and Coca-Cola products: